I first heard about OpenAI’s “research preview” of a remarkably human-like chatbot around the time I was attending NeurIPS 2022. My initial reaction was somewhat skeptical. I had worked on conversational agents as my master’s research at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) back in 2016–2017, and at that time, the quality of most systems was pretty underwhelming. For context, Amazon Alexa once hosted a multimillion-dollar challenge for universities to build a version of Alexa that could hold a coherent 20-minute conversation—yet the winning team only managed about ten and a half minutes.

So, I expected this new chatbot to be just another clunky model. But after trying it—like everyone else—I was completely blown away. It quickly became clear we were on the verge of a new era in AI. Since then, the entire industry has shifted course, with every major player now racing to build their own GPT-like systems.

A Shift From Open to Closed?

In August 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in Northern California against OpenAI and two of its founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, claiming that the company had strayed from its founding nonprofit mission and put profits ahead of the public good. Musk was an early investor and co-chaired OpenAI’s board when it launched in 2015. In his lawsuit, he described it as a “textbook tale of altruism versus greed,” alleging that Altman and Brockman “intentionally courted and deceived” him about the nature of OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit structure. Some people speculated he just had FOMO, given he was once closely involved with what might be humanity’s most powerful technology. Whatever the case, in ChatGPT’s early days, I could understand OpenAI’s reasoning: they worried that giving everyone access to such potent models could lead to malicious uses. Perhaps they wanted to fully understand the risks before going completely open-source.

I used to love OpenAI for posting nearly every idea and contribution publicly. Hearing that they might be shifting further from open-source to closed-source is perplexing—and it sparks a lot of questions in my mind. I’m not here to disrespect or accuse OpenAI of any wrongdoing; I truly believe they’re working for the greater good. But I am curious: Why can’t OpenAI remain open-source? Here are some of the questions I keep coming back to:

Capital Intensity and Open Sourcing
In an interview, Sam

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